


Soldering

by Brezifus



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997)
Genre: (as kids are wont to do), (especially if it's aeris), Attempted Murder, Blood and Injury, Bodyguard, Gen, Hide and Seek, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Trafficking, Kids in Danger, Murder, Rescue, Violence, Wall Market (Compilation of FFVII)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:01:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27190789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brezifus/pseuds/Brezifus
Summary: The two times Tseng saved Aeris and the one time she saved him.
Relationships: Aerith Gainsborough & Elmyra Gainsborough, Aerith Gainsborough & Tseng
Comments: 11
Kudos: 16





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> it's 5am so I should Try to sleep even though i got jittery juice in me to keep going. hopefully the last chapter will be up tomorrow/later today if my schoolwork isn't insane.
> 
> yes i wrote the first two chapters in one night and almost wrote the third as well
> 
> a lot of the scarier tags in this fic take place next chapter, notably the references to trafficking and such. more details in the notes there. this first chapter is more kid gets falls down in a dangerous place and needs help climbing back out.

The moment she determined herself out of Tseng’s earshot, she tore off at full speed. The Turk had dutifully turned his back, though he still refused to count aloud for hide-and-seek. It had taken a few years for Aeris to develop her nuanced understanding of his counting speed. The older she had gotten, the more time he had given her. Soon he must’ve figured she’d grow out of it, she was 10 now, it was almost time. For now, it was a ritual for them.

Maybe she was weird—no, she definitely _was_ weird—for playing silly games with a Turk instead of the other slum kids. But they were mean and crude, spitting in their palms before touching her whilst making the simple game of hide-and-seek an exercise in futility. They were either too dumb to play it right, or they simply abandoned her in the middle of a game.

Tseng was sharp and quick. She had to resort to trickier and trickier areas to hide herself in. Part of her burgeoning senses wondered if he pushed her like this on purpose, subtly testing her dexterity and wits—but she only understood it inasmuch as wanting to outsmart him.

There, half-buried by garbage and debris; a nook in an old Gothic arch half-shadowed by a flying buttress. Hiding in plain sight, but also very high up! She could watch from above at his confused meandering, snickering until she couldn’t take it anymore, breaking the silence with mocking and teasing. Aeris beamed at the idea and began to climb the debris.

She was careful. The past three years in the slums had taught her much, along with Elmyra’s warnings and somber reports on the television. She tested footholds before putting her full weight on them, yanked hard on coils before she pulled herself up, and gingerly avoided anything sharp or smelly. By this point she was adept, and even her concentration couldn’t mask the determined grin as she kept her eyes on the arch.

Testing a dented plate of sheet metal with several pushes of her hand, she sniffed in approval before clambering on it. Aeris stood, wondering if she could see if Tseng had started his search yet. At this point, though, he had given her such free range that she was much too far to tell. Good! She liked wasting his time!

Something shifted with a crack beneath her and Aeris dipped low for stability. Her heart spiked in that instant, calculating what had just happened.

Before her calculations completed the sheet metal gave way and Aeris tumbled into the dark. The scream of surprise caught in her throat as she crash-landed into makeshift cave, her ankle pinned by the fallen sheet.

Aeris heaved, bug-eyed as she stared at the hole in the debris above her. Every warning, every cautionary tale came rushing back to her in ugly clarity: Elmyra explaining the way pockets of air formed in piles of garbage, how people would fall and become trapped or worse crushed. It happened on the news a lot, bodies more often found than rescued if they were even able to be excavated at all. Her heart thrummed hard in her ears, imagining the things poking at her to be bones instead of metal.

She sucked in a breath, held it, and blew it out. No need to panic. She could still see her exit, though it was twice her height above her. Climbing had gotten her into this mess, after all, climbing could get her out!

Should be able to, anyway.

Giving an experimental tug of her ankle, Aeris slowly eased it from under the sheet, wincing louder and louder. When the dent of the sheet made its weight shift, twisting her foot in the process, Aeris screamed from the pain jolting up her leg. In teary-eyed rage, she shoved at the sheet and yanked her foot free.

The subsequent rumble of debris banished her victory with another spike of fear.

When it grew silent again, Aeris started to pray that it was and would remain stable—that she had merely slipped beneath a lower flying buttress that remained sturdy despite the weight on top of it. She chewed her lip and massaged her leg. The thought was not as comforting as predicted, as she imagined with far greater stakes the massive pile of debris above her.

Seething, breathing, seething again, Aeris fixed her gaze to the light above. This was not the hiding place she had wanted, so it was time to get to work. Once again using the sheet metal as footing, Aeris blindly mapped the debris in front of her. Every now and then she winced when she brushed something sharp, though fortunately she was gentle enough that blood never spewed. With whatever light she was given, she made a plan, and she started climbing.

The minute she put weight on her ankle her vision blurred and she fell back down, biting her lip and telling herself she wasn’t crying. Holding her leg below the knee, she dragged her nails on her skin to ease the pain. Right. Time to try again, only using one foot. It would be a challenge, but it seemed simple enough.

Without waiting for the pain to reside, she crawled forward and tried again. Her hands were shaking until she forced them not to by gripping the holds too tightly. Hopping up on one foot, she traveled up the incline as it became steep to the entrance. Breathing steadily like Tseng had told her to do in stressful situations, Aeris felt the sweat on her brow as she tried to calm her heart. This was scary, but it was okay—she was working through it and getting herself out. For that, she was already proud of herself, and was already toying with the idea of how to tell Tseng her thrilling adventure and how that would differ from telling Elmyra the same.

Her foot slipped on oiled tubing and Aeris yelped, holding herself up by her arms. The sudden weight tugging on them made them burn, her shoulders feeling hollow and thick at the same time. Huffing, puffing, and grunting with effort, Aeris blindly swept her foot along to try and find a solid hold. The debris only tumbled away from her, and her grip was slipping. It only made her panic, and the more frantic she became the more the debris slid.

Red, raw, and weak, her hands slipped much as her foot had and Aeris fell back down, slamming on the sheet metal so definitively her teeth felt like tuning forks. She curled over herself. Her shoulders burned, her ankle was in so much pain it didn’t matter if she moved it or not, and her eyes scrunched tight.

Tears she had not wanted to acknowledge before sprung forth and started flowing down her cheeks. The heat of them quickly cooled and Aeris started shaking in fear.

“ _Tseng!_ ” she cried, holding her head, “ _Tseng!!_ ”

No answer. Aeris cried, curled on the sheet metal like it was her cradle. There she wallowed, wondering if her sobs were loud enough to hear from the cleared pathways. It felt like an hour passed, and still there were no curious calls back, no Tseng shouting her name in hopes she’d hear. How much time _actually_ did she didn’t know, and in truth she didn’t know when Tseng would start to get worried about her since he always hid it so well when he found her, even after searching for a good long while.

A gulp of air went down hard in her throat. Time was of the essence, always, with debris caves before they collapsed. Had their hide-and-seek games made them too skilled to the point where the expectation of skill had made them cozy?

Weakly, she turned her head upwards to call for him again. Her voice only responded in metallic echoes. Aeris curled tighter.

Loosened pieces from her fall tumbled down and spiked her fervor again. Whether or not the structure was groaning she couldn’t tell, but it didn’t matter because her heart sounded the part.

“Tseng!! _Tseng!!!_ ” she twisted herself so she was perched on the incline, shouting, _screaming_ to the gap of light in desperation. If not him, somebody, _anybody, even_ the slum kids who made a habit of abandoning her.

“ _TSENG!!!_ ”

There was a deep crunch and Aeris screamed, scrunching herself back to prepare for the worst as the light went out.

“ _Aeris_ ,”

Her head snapped back up, “Tseng!!”

She flinched as his flashlight surveyed the situation, relief already setting in beyond measure though it only made her heart pound quicker. Tseng tucked the flashlight into a crevice in the opening, and reached down.

“Are you hurt?”

“My ankle—,” Aeris hiccuped. Tseng’s hand was just out of her reach and she heard him cuss in a language foreign to her. It made her feel weak, knowing that he only did so in dire situations and that she had put him in this one.

“You’re going to have to climb,” Tseng ordered. Aeris shook her head vehemently.

“I’m gonna fall again!!”

“You have to _try._ ” he said firmly. Aeris tried to calm her sobs to a whimper, hoping against hope that she didn’t look like a baby to him. Swallowing and hiccuping, Aeris raised her shaking hands and slowly tried to do what he told her to, though her body clearly expected failure again.

Gritting his teeth, Tseng seethed, “You have to _hurry._ ”

“I—,” Aeris choked, trying to firm her grip and pretend the shaking had gone away. At the same time she was struggling to tell him she was _scared_. Utterly, terribly _scared_. It sank into her joints and made them seized, too stiff to tell what to do.

“ _Aeris!_ ”

“ _I know!!_ ” she cried. Tseng grunted, and in her emotional state she couldn’t discern what exactly he was upset about, leading her fear to dig its claws in as it told her it was _her_. He was mad at _her_ and this was _her_ fault because _she should’ve known better_.

There was a _real_ groan then, wrenching menacingly above them. Whether it had been Aeris or Tseng, the pressure was reaching a breaking point and soon she would be crushed and he would lose an arm.

The gruesome, visceral image of that compounded with her knowledge from the newsreels made her scramble, her mind blank as animal instinct took over. Tseng, in the middle of ordering her again, snapped his hand closed as hers wrapped around his arm. With swiftness so brutal her chin clipped on metal, Tseng yanked her out of the cave. His flashlight tumbled into it, swallowed by the darkness. Wrapping her tight in his hold, he braced his body against the small mountain and allowed himself to slide down despite the debris tearing into his suit. Though the cave remained open for now, Aeris stared at the dark hole as she expected collapse at any moment. If it did, she didn’t see it, as Tseng hurried them away. One simple cave collapse could start a chain reaction, burying nearby pathways in seconds.

It wasn’t until he had returned them to where they had started that he put her down. Aeris watched his shoulders heave from her peripheral vision, guessing he was doing the same breathing technique he had taught her. Guessing, also, that he was gathering breath to shout and scold and get so angry she would remember it in the nursing home.

His shoulders held straight for a long while before they finally fell with a steady exhale and he asked, “Your ankle, anything else?”

She looked up at him. He blinked, his eyes focusing not on hers but on the blood flowing freely from her chin.

“Ah.”

When he bent down she shrank away.

“I didn’t mean to,” she protested morosely. Tseng squatted in front of her, still for a moment until he reached for her. Placing two gloved fingers on her far cheek, he forced her to look back at him. She feared his gaze, but it was only concentrated on her chin. When he remained quiet and merely brought a handkerchief forth anger bubbled up inside her. His silence wasn’t damning in anything else but its neutrality. Did he not _care_ to lecture her? He had sounded so mad when he was rescuing her, did that all just evaporate? Well, Aeris had the rage for both of them, then! If he was going to be so aloof, she was going to make up for that tenfold!

“I _didn’t mean to!_ ” she snapped in his face, wincing when Tseng placed the cloth to soak up the blood. Scrunching her face tight, she repeated herself with twice the force.

“I know.” he finally said, calm but firm. She opened her reddened eyes and stared at him in horrified disbelief.

“So?? That means nothing to you??”

“It does,” he corrected.

“ _So?!_ ” her voice cracked, running out of words to say in her heightened state. Tseng withdrew the bloodied handkerchief and looked at her, his brows slightly pitched as her only indication that he was feeling anything.

“You weren’t exactly having fun,” he said matter-of-factly, “Or am I incorrect?”

Aeris gaped at him, realizing that her cheeks were still hot with tears. Tseng cocked his head, much like he had when he made the marked tonal shift to speak to her when they had first met.

“Ankles don’t twist themselves, not without a fall.”

It was almost infuriating how aware Tseng was of her fractured pride and the lengths she went to in order to compensate for it, because a crueler man would’ve bluntly pointed out that she was crying. Crying like a baby.

Tseng’s gaze dropped to her feet, and, with a little consideration, figured out the injured one by the bruises left by the sheet metal. Carefully unlacing her shoe, he cautiously eased it off her foot despite her heightened cries of pain.

“Are...you angry?” Aeris whispered sheepishly as Tseng set the shoe aside.

“Furious.” He answered.

“Oh…,” she said, mousey, “At me?”

Tseng didn’t respond, but she got the impression that he was far more angry at someone—or something—else.

“Sorry about your flashlight…,” she muttered.

The corner of his mouth lifted, and relief finally settled in her.

The silken fabric of his suit felt like down pillows after laying on metal debris, and Aeris rested her head on his shoulder, dozing despite the pain as he carried her back to Elmyra’s.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as noted, there's a bunch of wall market stuff here including trafficking and implied rape. it should be of note that aeris is a child in this, as well, and some of the language--actually a lot of the language--will be triggering as it is very icky, disgusting wall market men roping a little girl into their group.
> 
> tseng interferes before it gets too far.

That had not nearly been the worst trouble she had found herself in, of course, which was probably the cause for the mildness of Tseng’s reaction. Nearly two years prior, Aeris had not quite understood the enormity of what living in the slums truly meant. Elmyra had caught her trying to sneak out to explore past her bedtime more than once, and had tried to tell her why she couldn’t. Her mother _really_ had tried.

But Aeris, when her head was set on something, was a brick wall. Over several nights she would test the floorboards, mapping each sound to every step so that she knew everything about the upstairs hallway. When Elmyra would move about just before her bedtime, Aeris would be wide awake in bed, listening to how the floorboards creaked to _her_ weight as well. It wasn’t long before she was able to enact her master plan, staying close to the walls where the wood was thickest and creeping down the stairs. The front door was too obvious, so she slipped out the kitchen window instead and stole off into the night of the slums.

Some pathways were dark from broken or absent electrical wires. Others were lit so gaudily they sparkled in Aeris’s impish eyes, drawing her like a moth to flame.

She understood much, yet so painfully little as she walked into the street made too big for kids like her. What she didn’t understand she took in greedily, and if anyone stopped and asked her if she knew what she was doing she would nod and grin, dashing any skeptical looks away. This, she learned, was Wall Market. Kids weren’t supposed to be here, but it was clear that if they were rough and mature—like her!—then they could go wherever they pleased! A street vendor even gave her food for free, a gesture she did not recognize as worry and pity.

As she chewed the meat off the stick, juices dripping down her chin and staining her clothes, Aeris wandered, occasionally people watching, occasionally watching storefronts. There were plenty of things to learn as nearly-naked men strutted into a place that looked like a simple gym, and Aeris figured that it made sense to show off your muscles as you worked out so she moved on without giving it a second thought. Another place had people dressed in bee costumes, teasing to sting their patrons. Aeris thought that looked fun, if she weren’t so enamored with learning everything in one night. There was a bar complete with ugly noises from the inside she thought only existed in movies, a massage parlor that advertised happy endings which Aeris understood to mean fortune telling, and a great ornate palace where lots of well-dressed women entered, escorted by less-well dressed men. Those women, she decided, must run this place like nobility. People both filthy and refined crowded the streets of Wall Market, and Aeris looked up at all of them. There was even a person in a suit that looked like Tseng’s, something she should tell him later as she thought his suit was unique.

Even though she recognized the suit, she avoided it. As much as Tseng was now a regular presence, Aeris was not stupid and did not forget who he worked for. Some dark, deep part of her knew that Tseng was an individual and other Shinra lackeys may not be the same as him.

“Whoa!” A man exclaimed as Aeris had unintentionally ran into him in her haste to get away from the other Shinra suit. This was not lost on the man as he laughed and said, “You runnin’ from the law, little miss?”

_That_ thrilled her. She grinned and nodded confidently, “Uh-huh!”

He laughed harder, “Damn! Atta girl, no wonder you walk like you own the place, huh?”

Aeris beamed. The man continued with a stammer, “Shit, _d’ya_ own the place?”

“Maybe!” Aeris stuck her chin out, “So you better behave!”

A large, hearty guffaw rewarded her further and he slapped his big hand on her shoulder, “You got it, li’l princess! Got a place that’s your favorite?”

“No,” Aeris answered, though she did give the empty skewer in her hand some thought, “Only looking tonight,”

“Ohh, I see, I see. You got all the time in the world, huh?”

Aeris pursed her lips, not knowing how to respond. Saying she should get home to Elmyra because it was past her bedtime would certainly shatter her credibility with the man. She shrugged, nonchalant. The man beamed, which meant she answered well.

After noting the skewer in her hand, he took her to more, better food from a street cart that was just tucked away from the rest of the lights. According to him, the stuff that wasn’t up front was the more tasty. Aeris didn’t know if she agreed, but it sounded right enough. One of his friends had noticed and joined them, complimenting Aeris on her hardiness as well. She smiled, but it felt strange to be seated between the two of them. Another one ran up and excitedly shared great news, and soon the two were standing, and she was too, and she was walking with them.

At the door to a fairly dark building Aeris said she had to get going. The men turned and laughed at her, and it did not feel as validating as before.

“Whaddya mean? A princess has gotta survey the whole of her kingdom, right?”  
  
“Yeah, but—,” her mind raced for words, “I’m tired.”

“We got a bed in there,” one of them cocked his head towards the door, “Ain’t comfy but it’s home!”

“Well, a princess already _has_ a home!” she protested, trying to step away. Another clap on the back from the big hand of the first man sent her forward, and though she thought he meant to do that he laughed like he didn’t notice.

“Naw, a princess’s got _many_ homes! You’ll see!”

“Plus,” she was being ushered inside now, and her heels did not dig into dirty metal as well as she would’ve wished them to, “Everyone’s gotta meet the princess when they have the chance!”

“E-Everyone?”

The front door slammed behind her, then another door. Three more men looked up from their scraped-together table, cards in their hands stained with something brown and stiffening. The room smelled, badly, but the men didn’t seem to mind nor could Aeris really put a name to the smell. Despite its namelessness, it triggered something in her and she _knew_ , not wanted, but _knew_ she had to flee.

Big hands, now rough, grabbed her by the arms when she tried to do so. The guffaws and laughter were diminishing now, and in their place there was only heartless gravel.

“Princesses are supposed to be _polite_. We invited ya into our home, and you’re just gonna bolt like that?”

“U-Um,”

Two of the men, including the first she had met, were pushing her back with their presence now, while the third hung behind at the doorway like a watch dog. She backed away with stumbling feet, sorely aware of the three other men behind her rising to meet her. Hands started moving in the corners of her eyes, and for reasons she didn’t want to know one hand gripped the front of his pants to jostle himself. Numbers went back and forth among the men, guessing, adjusting, wondering how much money they’d earn for the little princess of Wall Market.

The door slammed open and confusion split their encroachment, “What the f—,”

From the gaps between the men in front of her she saw a familiar suit stride through the door and, without looking to the side, slammed something into the watch dog’s face.

Aeris’s eyes bulged as she watched dark liquid explode from the man’s face—liquid that she knew to be red as he twitched and crumpled to the floor with a hole in his face.

Tseng strode into the crude light, his face cold and dark like she had never seen before. She had seen stone. She had seen professional. But not this. Not this emotionless ice, with the only spark in him being one of dare she say cold amusement.

“ _What the hell_ , Turk?! Y’ain’t got no right to be in here!” The first man shouted in rage, “Show me yer Shinra warrant, you Wuwu prick—,”

Aeris suddenly understood the slur that left his mouth when Tseng’s cold exterior contorted to calculated rage. With an ugly backhand he struck the man, then connected forehead to knee. The other men howled and lunged to attack, and in the aged yellow light Aeris saw something shiny and metal flash moments before sprays of blood acted as fireworks to gargling screams.

Swallowing a yelp, Aeris dropped to the floor and scrambled underneath the makeshift table, barely noticing that her voice whimpered with each breath as her hands and knees carried her over the filthy floor. Curling into a fetal position, she rocked herself as sounds of violence filled her ears. She covered them. She still heard the wails of blood and death, and her eyes were not spared when a body _thumped_ in front of her, eyes wide as blood spat from their mouth from an unseen but powerful source. They twitched, but the eyes didn’t close, and Aeris dug her nails in her scalp when she realized they never will.

Another body fell, crashing and destroying the table. Aeris screamed, scrambling to flee. Her hand hit a small bar that had been a table leg, and, gripping it, she scurried to the darkest corner of the room.

Tseng moved like a creature, too visceral to be mechanical, too mechanical to be fluid. Even as the men realized they had lost and tried to crawl away Tseng showed them no mercy, jamming his heels in their vulnerable throats. One begged for forgiveness. Aeris shut her eyes too late to avoid seeing what happened to him.

Wild, bloody eyes focused on her and lunged. Aeris screamed as slick fingers pawed at her face, grabbing for her hair. A hard thud smashed her nose. She swung the table leg in a panic, stunning the man momentarily until suddenly he was pulled off and away. There was a terrible squelching sound, and then a morbid tap dance. Another _thump_.

Frightened and blinded by blood that wasn’t hers, Aeris ran forward, swinging the table leg wildly in front of her. She hit something, something that grunted in shock. She kept swinging.

The table leg was grabbed and held with a grip too strong for her to move. Aeris screamed, flinching when an arm swept over her eyes. Then a bright light flashed, and she blinked rapidly until she could clearly see Tseng in the beam of his own flashlight, staring at her intently.

Well, it was almost Tseng. Almost. There was blood on him. There was a lot of blood on him. It was almost Tseng.

Aeris’s knees were shaking. His eyes had softened every so slightly when they were looking at her, but she hardly noticed. There was nothing to notice but the ice, the cold, and the blood.

Tseng frowned, and it was not a thoughtful one. The darkness in his expression made her heart race as he pulled out his handkerchief and held her face, forcefully cleaning it.

“What are you doing out here?!” Tseng snapped, “I _told_ you not to wander, especially at night. _Elmyra_ told you, _you_ know what you did!”

Aeris was ironically as frozen as his ice as she stared at him with glassy eyes, her vision blurring from something other than blood.

“If you weren’t who you were, Aeris, do you know what would’ve happened to you?!” He continued, ignoring the pained wince as he brushed blood off of the bridge of her nose, “ _That_ is the only reason why you’re safe now, _do you understand?!_ ”

Aeris’s gaze had wandered to the side without her noticing, blurred but focused on the red. On the dark, dark red in the crude lighting. On the mess of meat and exposed bone and of the dirty clothes becoming wet and clinging to the floor. As she did not notice she was staring at this, she did not notice that Tseng had become quiet.

The table leg started to slide out of her grip and Aeris inhaled sharply, tightening her hands and snapping back to his face. The frown remained, but the dark anger was fading from it.

“Let go, Aeris.”

Her teeth clacking was the only indication to her that she was shivering from head to toe. She wouldn’t let go. She felt something on her upper lip and sniffed, the action as painful as the sound was ugly. Tseng dipped the cleanest tip of the handkerchief down and swiped the drip of blood away. Aeris flinched. Tseng softened ever so slightly more, his exterior cracking in relief if only for a moment. He tried tugging on the table leg again, and while Aeris gave one last ditch effort to keep it in her hands, she let go.

“Come.” he simply said, the order quiet despite its clear urgency. She did, trailing behind him. It was clear when they stepped out to the street he was going to take her hand to walk her away from Wall Market, but at the lights and the sounds Aeris took care of that for him by grabbing the edge of his coat.

When they finally made it to the path to her house, Aeris hugged him tight. It wasn’t in gratitude, nor was she happy. She was holding him so tightly it almost hurt, her face buried in his ribs as ugly gasps escaped her.

Tseng stood stock still.

“The next time you sneak out, I’ll know,” he warned.

Aeris wailed, “I won’t! I won’t! I won’t sneak out again!”

Tseng was silent. The blood was now dried on his face. A light was on in Aeris’s house, no doubt Elmyra sick with worry.

“I’m sorry!” Aeris muffled into his coat, “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry!!”

“Apologize to your mother.” Tseng deflected coldly. Aeris looked up at him.

“B-But, you—,”

“That is my job,” he explained, still emotionless, “It is my job even when I’m not protecting you. It is what I’m meant to do.”

Horror dawned on her young face as her knuckles kneaded into his jacket. Whatever words she was thinking did not make it to her terrified lips. Letting him go, she backed away with a stumble. It was not the first time she looked at him in fear, nor was it going to be the last.

But certainly it was the worst.

“Go to bed, Aeris,” he offered gently, “I’m not going to be mad at you tomorrow.”

Aeris swallowed, not wholly believing that in the moment, and bolted into her house straight to Elmyra’s arms.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> posed a question to my followers on twitter what to do about embroidering the military jacket idea, if it should be a random thrifted jacket or elmyra's husband's jacket.
> 
> think i came up with the perfect solution.

“Rude’s a big softy, and Reno’s stupid!”

Tseng cocked an eyebrow at her cheeky smile. The young teen stretched her legs to the far pew of the church, occasionally challenging herself to hang in the air across the aisle as they talked. It had been a few days since they had, and the greenhorn Turks ran their trials with her. It seemed odd; Tseng did not share his duties with anyone else until now. How he felt about that was hard to parse, as much as it was for Aeris. On one hand she enjoyed the fresh company, especially since it was starting to get annoying how well Tseng knew her and used that to his advantage. On the other hand, there were times she got close to admitting she missed his usual presence.

“Rude thinks he’s like you, all stoic and quiet and intimidating, but I made him cry on the first day!”

“Do tell,” Tseng smirked, and she beamed that it had amused him so.

“All I had to do was show him the garden! He started sniffling and his lip pouted out and everything!”

A small, genuine laugh. Aeris let the treading of her big army boots slip on the pew so she could kick at the dust of the church floor, the threadbare stockings she was wearing slipping beneath the frills of her dress. The oversized military coat she had thrifted from a shop was bunched comfortably on her shoulders. She had embroidered over the name with flowers and fairy-like shapes. As she told her mother, it was her way of bringing peace to the jacket’s former owner, whether they were still alive or not. Embroidery had then become a bit of a hobby to her, and at nights before bed when she sat with her mother on the couch as their flickering unreliable TV blared reruns of dramas she ‘doodled’ on the jacket further and further. Vines and fairies intermixed with little animals and representations of dust, spreading down from the nametag and curling around her shoulder. On the arm there was the unfinished tail of a blessed serpent, and on the back ice crystals had started to form—remnant images she had seen of great beings the Planet had lost to mako production. Stitched flowers both big and small took up the spaces in between.

The jacket had been a wise decision. The deep pockets allowed for her to carry the knife Tseng had given her when she had turned 13 a year ago. The slum kids that had ignored her before were starting to pick at her in ways she didn’t like, and though it seemed a drastic measure he had gifted her that for protection, now that she knew how to use it. It wouldn’t have had much use when she was 8, and Aeris then got the sense he had been anxiously waiting to give her a weapon in the name of self defense ever since then. The dresses and skirts she liked to wear didn’t have pockets deep enough to conceal it, and she liked the deceptive form she struck when the knife was tucked away in her reach.

“Reno’s dumb, though!” she said with the same amount of energy though she huffed in annoyance, “He broke a _trowel_. How do you break a trowel?!”

Tseng waited for an explanation as Aeris got down and pulled her tools from underneath the pews. Sure enough, her trowel was now bent at an impressive right angle.

“He just jammed it into the dirt like he was expecting to hit metal—but then he _did!_ ” Aeris admonished, “Now I gotta go to the shops today and get a new one!”

“Today?” Tseng asked, still marveling at what Reno had done.

“Yeah,” Aeris answered, “Wanna come?”

He gave her a look. It wasn’t a matter of want, and she knew it. The grin she wore was cheeky, but beneath it she knew neither of them had much choice in the matter.

The upper slums were quiet today, most shops closed or running on low staff for the laziness of the early afternoon. An occasional snore could be heard from an open window, and shopkeeps were casual and friendly as the extra time allowed them to be. The trowel she picked out was new, discounted by Aeris’s familiarity with the woman who ran the gardening shop. Whenever they spoke Tseng was never acknowledged and the woman spoke directly to the young teen, which worked since Tseng wasn’t about to speak to her anyways. Aeris liked her for it even if she knew it was done more as a slight to him than as warmth to her. Leastways at first; Aeris had easily cultivated a friendship like the flowers that grew in the church.

If her boots were lighter, there would’ve been a bounce in her step. Regardless the height of her chin and the smile on her face beamed for her as she walked beside her Turk. Here the plates were thinned with decay, allowing for squares of sunshine from the criss-crossed coils of reinforced concrete to dapple the roads.

Aeris gasped, “The chocolatier’s giving out their rejects!” and without another word she sprinted forward, leaving Tseng behind. Aeris took as many chocolates as was polite from the little makeshift stall set up at the storefront, unable to wait before shoving one in her mouth. Reject though it was, it still melted delectably and Aeris made happy noises. Turning to where Tseng remained several paces away, she tried to wave him over.

He simply shook his head, though his smirk was undeniable. Aeris puffed in mock-anger at his aloofness, stuffed another chocolate in her mouth, and marched back to him.

“ _Here!_ ” she demanded, shoving a chocolate to his face, “Eat this!”

Tseng only pulled his head back and did nothing to comply. Aeris fumed.

“I _know_ you aren’t allergic! Eat it!”

When Tseng remained unchanged, Aeris pulled the parchment paper back and pushed the chocolate to his lips to his chagrin. Narrowing his eyes at her, he pried her wrist away, plucked the chocolate from her fingers, and popped it into his mouth, thoroughly bereft of amusement.

Aeris was the opposite, grinning in pride at her triumph as he licked the mess she had made off of his lips in turn. Out came the handkerchief he always carried as he carefully made sure every last trace of chocolate was gone. Aeris stood back to admire her devilish handiwork.

Something caught her eye behind him. It was a pedestrian, but he was moving too slow, and his eyes were fixed to the back of Tseng’s head. She blinked, an old buried feeling swelling up in her throat. Like she was in Wall Market for the first time again, taken off the main road and standing in front of a dark building. He passed under a square of sunlight and something glittered between his hands; a thin, metal cord from the hardware store some blocks back.

“ _Tseng!_ ”

“You spying Wuwu _scum—_ ,” the stranger yelled when Aeris had sounded the alarm, lunging forward.

Aeris wasn’t thinking. There was only a blur of bodies as she pushed forward, slipping herself between Tseng and the assailant as her hand dove in and out of her pocket. Sandwiched between the two men from the force of the lunge, Aeris stopped breathing as everything came to a halt.

Tseng’s hands clamped on her shoulders. Aeris shuddered, coming back to life. The assailant choked, trying to flounder. Tseng kept her steady, neither pulling her back or pushing her forward. She looked down.

Warmth pooled at her hands, dribbling down her wrists and dripping onto the pavement. The knife was pushed to the hilt—at Aeris’s height, perfectly slotted in the precious gap beneath his sternum.

Her shaken breaths sounded like roars in her ears. The assailant choked and gargled much like deep and horrible memories did. She jerked, tugging at the knife like she had to rather than she knew what she was doing.

It pulled free. The assailant stumbled back. Discolored blood pooled in his mouth, and he collapsed on the pavement. Aeris gawked at him, breathing with her shoulders, the knife shaking. Glancing down made her shriek and she dropped the bloodied weapon, flinching as it skittered on the pavement. Tseng then pulled her back, now that he understood she hadn’t been hurt.

It had never occurred to her that Tseng was adept enough at killing to kill fast. The assailant twisted and moaned in pain, scrabbling for help in the shattered cordiality of the afternoon. No one seemed to have any idea how to respond, some gingerly approaching the assailant while others seeing Aeris’s bugging eyes and blood-slicked hands and reacting with gasps of horror and pity.

The handkerchief reappeared in her vision, stark white against the blood glistening in the sunshine. Another thing occurred to her—with how much his kerchiefs cleaned, there was no way that he had ever used the same one twice. Carefully, standing between her and the awful vision of the assailant’s writhing, Tseng wrapped her hands in the cloth. The chocolate he had wiped off prior was now overruled by the blood.

“I-I...I…,” Aeris stammered. Tseng smoothed the cloth over her hands with his thumb, quiet though the alarm was raising around them. Once he felt the cloth wouldn’t shift, he stepped back to pick up the discarded knife.

“I-I don’t want that!!” she yelped, surprising herself with the force and fear that had unleashed. Tseng paused and looked at her, his eyes for once an open book. He picked up the knife and did not return it to her.

_Someone get a healer!_

_What happened?_

_Don’t get a healer, get the police!_

_Was it self-defense?_

_That’s what I saw._

A healer. Aeris shivered. She could do that. She knew she could. Once Elmyra had cut herself cooking and in her panic Aeris had summoned a fresh breeze that closed the wound up. She could absolutely heal him.

It mortified her with a sinking coldness that she wasn’t even trying to summon it.

Crowds began to form. Aeris’s panic heightened. Suddenly Tseng was holding her close to his side, still assessing the situation. The woman who ran the gardening shop was there, staring at her, and Aeris wished she wouldn’t. Aeris wished she wouldn’t see her like this, think of her differently, or suddenly start speaking to Tseng instead of her when she bought trowels the other Turks ruined.

The wheels were clearly turning in the woman’s head, and Aeris flinched when she ran up and gripped her other side. Hissing the only words Aeris had ever heard her say to Tseng, the woman pushed her forward.

“Are you a Turk or aren’t you?! Get her out of here!!”

Tseng did not protest, nor even scowl at the woman. Her added leverage did help them part a way in the crowd as she was far more adept at pointing at faces, speaking their names, and telling them to move aside. Once the crowd had been cleared, the gardener released Aeris with a hard kiss to her forehead and retreated back to enact damage control.

Everything was a blur until they reached the church again.

Aeris stumbled to the pail of water she had walked from her house, breaths hitching until they turned into desperate sobs as she plunged her arms into the chilled water. Frantically she started rubbing her skin raw, watching in horror as the clear water turned murky and red. Even though Tseng’s handkerchief was soft she was too harsh as she cleaned and cleaned and cleaned and cleaned the blood.

It had come off a long time ago. Logically she knew that. But it didn’t seem like it. She choked on a sob. It _really_ didn’t seem like it. Her reflection was distorted and dark in the murky water, overshadowed further when Tseng crouched near her.

She looked up at him, lip trembling. He was calm, but for once he wasn’t cold, staring at her raw hands tremble and drip with dirty water. When his eyes met hers she felt too much all at once and none of it good, waiting for the _thank you_ to leave his lips. She didn’t want to be thanked. Nothing she had done was worthy of thanks, even if it did save his life. Aeris was full of ugly, morose, wailing hatred for what she had done and the noises it had caused in her ears. Fighting was going to happen in the world, she knew that. She embroidered over the name on her jacket in order to give it peace simply because she knew that. However, she could not handle being so direct and near to the sick warmth violence brought.

Tseng sighed through his nose. Aeris held her breath and waited for the words she didn’t want to hear.

Instead his arms opened and pulled Aeris close. Her fingers curled in confusion against his lapels, but soon she found the gesture had cracked a dam and she was sobbing full force, tears, snot, everything. Embarrassed despite what had happened, Aeris tried to stifle it as quickly as it would go—which wasn’t very quick at all. Tseng was nothing if not patient, though, and when her sobs became relatively quiet he murmured.

“I was 15. Not that much older than you.”

Her breath hitched, pitching her shoulders up as she hiccuped and struggled to ask, “H-How did y-you…,”

“I didn’t.” he answered, “And I didn’t sleep for three days.”

She pressed her forehead to his shoulder and drank in every word, terrified.

“...Will I get used to it, like you?”

Tseng contemplated that for a moment, tapping lightly on her shoulder blade as he did so.

“You shouldn’t get used to it.”

It was sunset by the time Aeris felt alright enough to leave the church. The normalcy of her home in early evening both calmed and unnerved her, but then every step she took felt like she was in a waking dream. It didn’t make matters better that when she opened the door, Elmyra sat in the most fragile state she had seen her in years, kneading her lap in the living room. That was confusing at first, because it’s not like Aeris had been missing. Even if the news had reached Elmyra’s ears, Tseng had been with her. Much as Elmyra had to begrudgingly accept the Turks as a constant in their lives now, it wasn’t like she shied away from using him when she thought Aeris was in trouble.

Aeris crossed into the small living space, then noticed that Elmyra’s lap was covered in the same olive green of her jacket. Her mouth hung open, the question never coming as her mother looked up at her with weak and weary eyes. There was notice in them, seeing that Aeris was doing no emotionally better than her in that moment. Elmyra swallowed, forcing a smile on her face, then raised the jacket up to Aeris’s view.

Around the mechanically stitched name ‘GAINSBOROUGH’Elmyra had embroidered little suggestions of colors in swirling patterns. Aeris felt her throat close with pain as she looked at her mom in question.

“Just thought it was...good.” Elmyra spoke through her own burgeoning tears, “It’s good. What you’re doing. Respecting life. I thought I could...do the same.”

Aeris burst into tears and her mother followed. Collapsing into her lap, Aeris wept into the crook of her neck.


End file.
